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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24097621">Shoot Straight</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/EudociaCovert/pseuds/EudociaCovert'>EudociaCovert</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Best Path: Prompt Fills [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Baby Jet, Baby Longshot, Child Soldiers, Gen, Longshot is very not okay, Reference to Child Deaths, Referenced Suicide Attempt, Violence, War Orphans, War With Actual Consequences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 23:26:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>457</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24097621</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/EudociaCovert/pseuds/EudociaCovert</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Longshot does what he's asked.</p><p>Prompt fill!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jet &amp; Longshot (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Best Path: Prompt Fills [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1736206</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>165</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>The Best Path: 5th Anniversary Prompt Party!</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Shoot Straight</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">



        <li>In response to a prompt by
            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueroses96/pseuds/blueroses96">blueroses96</a>  in the  <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/collections/TBPpromptparty">TBPpromptparty</a>
          collection.
        </li>
    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <strong>Prompt:</strong>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Longshot's first mission with Jet after being found in the river.</p><p>---WARNING: Longshot is a child soldier with very corrupted thinking patterns and a very blunt way of addressing things. Be careful.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The rain is cold.</p><p>It soaks the archer’s rough clothes. It runs down his face, blinding him.</p><p>His bow should be protected. His quiver should be laid flat, so it doesn’t fill with water. The shafts of his arrows will swell, and they won’t fly straight.</p><p>He will not move. Obedience is the most important thing; the archer knows this. He has only three options. Obey, disobey, die.</p><p>He likes obeying. It’s easy. It was easy to obey in the house he was born, in the training camps, on the navy ship, in the village.</p><p>Disobeying is hard. It brings punishment. He disobeyed in the village, when his hands shook and he missed the shot. He was punished; he would have killed the girl cleanly, but instead she burned slow. He disobeyed when he tried to die. His punishment was a boy named Jet.</p><p>Jet was an excellent teacher. He knew the words for all the things the archer felt, like <em>hate</em> and <em>evil</em> and <em>Fire Nation swine. </em>He taught the archer of justice, of getting the bad people back for what had been stolen, of making things even. <em>When we’re bigger,</em> he had promised, <em>we’ll make them pay for it</em>.</p><p>The archer thinks Jet stole him, and maybe that makes things a tiny bit more even already. The archer thinks Jet might kill him when they’re bigger. That’s fine. The archer can wait.</p><p>Today they saw two evil men dressed in red kill a man on the road.</p><p>Jet decided he didn’t want to wait to be bigger anymore.</p><p>Jet had brought him to this place and said <em>stay right here</em>.</p><p>And the archer will.</p><p>Jet crashes out of the brush. His eyes are wild, and his teeth are barred, wet hair plastered to his face. The two men come after him, bellowing, angry.</p><p>“Shoot them!” Jet orders.</p><p>The archer does. One. Two.</p><p>He waits to get sick, like the last time he killed, but it doesn’t feel the same at all.</p><p>Jet pulls two hooked blades off one of the bodies. They’re big, too big for him, but he swings them anyway and smiles.</p><p>It is a pleasing sight. Jet doesn’t care where the weapon is from as long as he can use it.</p><p>And if there’s anything the archer knows how to do, it is be a good weapon.</p><p>All he has to do is never decide, never disobey, and he can stay here. He can climb the trees and eat food and see Jet smile. The bad can’t get out of him if Jet makes all the choices.</p><p>Maybe someday the archer will obey enough orders that it won’t matter anymore that he’s evil inside.</p><p>He doesn’t know. But he’s going to try.</p>
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